Opus Publicum and Illiberal Catholicism

Several recent off-blog inquiries have asked whether or not I setting off in a fundamentally new direction with this, Opus Publicum 2.0, since hitting the reset button just over a month ago. (For more on that, see “Rebegin.”) Given that the last couple of weeks has, with the exception of a single post on “Latinizations” in the Eastern Catholic churches, been dedicated to matters concerning international law and politics, it might seem to some that the previous blog’s concerns with intra-ecclesial affairs from a traditional Catholic perspective has faded away in favor of more neutral engagements on socio-political topics. I assure you that’s not the case, or at least not entirely.

One of the purposes of this blog’s reset was to declaw it. In the past Opus Publicum became a hub for Catholic/Orthodox quarrels and various traditionalist polemics concerning liturgy, doctrine, and even the Pope. While I do not deny that there is a real crisis in the Catholic Church and that this crisis is often exacerbated, rather than addressed, by far too many of her priests and bishops, there are numerous other blogs and websites with far more experience reporting and commenting on those issues for faithful Catholics to turn to. (If you really can’t find any, just ask.) At most, Opus Publicum can dedicate space to one aspect of this crisis, namely the widespread dissent from the Church’s authentic and continuous social magisterium—a magisterium which is comprised not just of a few passages from Pope John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus or Benedict XVI’s Caritas et Veritate, but includes, for example, Gregory XIV’s Mirari Vos, Blessed Pius XI’s Quanta Cura, Leo XIII’s Immortale Dei, St. Pius X’s Notre Charge Apostolique, and Pius XI’s Quas Primas. Further guiding light on this magisterium is provided not by the artful proof-texting of the Acton Institute nor the “ignore-and-proceed” antics of Tom Woods and the more extreme wings of Catholic libertarianism, but by authoritative expositions such as Fr. Edward Cahill’s The Framework of a Christian State and Fr. Denis Fahey’s The Mystical Body of Christ and the Reorganization of Society.

In other words, Opus Publicum is, through faithful adherence to the Church, aligned with that broad and still somewhat ill-defined “movement” which has come to be known as “illiberal Catholicism.” However, as I discussed in two earlier posts here and here, there is not simply one “brand” of illiberal Catholicism out there. In fact, despite the apparent novelty of the anti-liberal writings found on excellent websites such as Ethika Politika, anti-liberalism was the common creed of the Catholic Church up until the mid-20th C., though many Catholics, particularly in the United States, have long tried to downplay that reality. Some have identified the iteration of illiberal Catholicism associated with Ethika Politika and its regular contributors as “left wing.” If that’s true—and it may not be—then I suppose that would make Opus Publicum and the illiberal Catholic writings published or reprinted by outlets such as IHS Press, Angelus Press, and The Remnant “right wing” insofar as they remain more at home with the Thomistic tradition that was alive and well in the Church until the mid-1950s and the directives of the Popes rather than contemporary academic currents. Such left/right lines cannot be drawn neatly, of course. After all, “right wing” illiberal Catholic Christopher Ferrara’s Liberty: The God That Failedreceived endorsements from “Radical Orthodox” theologians John Milbank and Graham Ward.

The reason I stress where Opus Publicum comes down in all of this is not for the purpose of trying to set up a rival camp to other anti-liberal projects but rather to make known the fact that current Catholic pushback against liberalism is not a monolithic project. In fact, it is one which has, through fits and starts, been ongoing since the 18th C. And while it is true that there remains clear areas of disagreement between those who might generally be called “left wing” illiberal Catholics and the movement’s “right wing” (natura pura comes to mind), at this juncture both “sides” should be more focused on where they converge rather than differ. That’s not a call for absolute silence, mind you. “Right wing” illiberal Catholics might, after all, have a thing or two to say about certain disparagements of “Throne and Altar” positions found among the “left wing.” However, whatever is to be said should be delivered in a spirit of charity and correction, not strife. Both “wings” have a great deal to learn from each other.

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Speaking of the social/economic teachings… do you ever plan to bring pre-19th-century thought into the mix? Democracy of the dead & all that… don’t mercantilism and whatever the scholastics said get seats at the table? So long as we’re plotting the death of modernity we might as well make a party of it & invite everybody.

Also… speaking for myself, I’m continuing to better understand the failure of modern left/right to capture the right way for society in a general sense and in several specific senses, with the exception of economics. I have a pretty poor handle on how to get past modern categories in understanding the right order for production, labor, government, etc. So to the extent that this blog is your attempt to educate people in that sort of thing, there’s my vote.

With respect to economic thinking or, more concretely, economic policy, it’s important to keep in mind that rejecting the current liberal ordo is not an open gate to freely pull in any and every Catholic line of thought which has been applied to the topic. As a Catholic, I believe that we have to hold to what the Church’s magisterium has concluded, even if it runs up against the thinking of some particular theologian or school of theologians. There is a very modern temptation to do end-runs around the magisterium on all levels by going back to some past figure, declaring that figure to have “really spoken” X rather than Y, and then hold that up as the new marching orders for the day. That temptation has been, in my estimation, one of the disastrous fallouts of the “new theology.” Under the banner of “clarifying” or “properly interpreting” the tradition, they have set up a counter-tradition which was intended, and eventually did, undermine classical Thomism and Scholasticism. That economic liberals and more left-leaning Catholics are trying to accomplish the same thing in the economic realm comes as no surprise.

As for how we establish a functioning society based on Catholic principles, well, that is an ongoing project and subject of much deliberation. As I have written about elsewhere, many of these matters are under-theorized for the simple fact that far too many lawyers, economists, sociologists, etc. have invested themselves in the liberal project rather than taking the teachings of the Church seriously and, from there, building upon them. While I think it is important to critique liberalism and the liberal hijacking of the Church’s social magisterium, that cannot be the “final word.” Action is important, too, but few today are thinking through that fact. Mine is only a modest voice.

Well, even so, is there no value to understanding speculative positions the Church has left behind – e.g. to better grasp what came later, rejecting them? And besides, there’s a million ways the scholastics have simply been forgotten, and very few if any that the magisterium has reached a conclusion against them, despite appearances. If so, it may not be an end-run at all. My impression is that the magisterium has concluded comparatively little in this field.

Yeah, I’m not anywhere near being able to think about action – I’m still trying to figure out what the right abstractions are, drawing the conceptual boundaries.